Sunday, March 8, 2015

This is Oregon Caves National Monument Headquarters. Like so many buildings in the western National Parks and Monuments, it's a gorgeous example of rustic architecture. The Klamath-Siskyou Mountains are much higher and more rugged than can be readily appreciated traveling through or near the area on major roads. This means the rain shadow off the Pacific is quite sharp and extreme. Summers here are long and very, very dry. The scary thing in this photo is easy to miss: those dead trees on the ridge behind the building were killed by a major fire just a few years before our visit. It would be truly tragic to lose a gem like this. In the FlashEarth image, you can see that the fire got terrifyingly close.